UK/Spain 2024 Part 4: Meeting the Sheepies!

Hi friends! Long time no blog. I have been busy working on my thesis revisions, which I have just submitted today. So fingers crossed they are happy with my changes and I can get my PhD signed off on!

Back to Scotland hours! After Endiburgh we drove the two hours to Jojo's place, stopping off at a Tesco on the way for supplies. Jojo's place is BEAUTIFUL! Not so many food photos in this post, but look at how pretty! I adored the daffodils growing everywhere.















And of course, THE SHEEP! I loved visiting with them. Look at these cuties.











It had been a long day, starting in Edinburgh and then the drive out to Jojo's. After visiting with the sheep, we were looking for something easy for dinner. So we put together a lovely tray of Girl Dinner(TM). It included three different vegan cheeses (all coconut oil free), olive bread, foccacia, salted vegan butter, olives, and grapes. A perfect little snacky end to the day! All the cheeses were lovely, and I am very sad that I can't get anything like that here.





I also had some of this lovely Oolong kombucha!



I'm hoping to get back into more regular posting now that PhD is over, though I still have a lot of other less fun things going on. I hope you won't mind if some of these posts are more landscape heavy, but I promise there is still a lot of delicious food to come!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Jojo wasn't the only one graciously letting me stay, I was also the guest of Peps, Jojo's cat!

UK/Spain 2024 Part 3: Edinburgh again

The next morning we all slept in, I slept for 11 hours, sorely needed after all that travel! We woke up, and started our morning with some vegan chocolate pop tarts from Aldi. I was told they tasted like warm bourbon biscuits, but I'd never had one of them. I also learned that English people and Australian people say bourbon very differently.



Jojo and I said our goodbyes, then headed out for a little Edinburgh adventure before driving the two hours to Jojo's house in rural Scotland. Our first stop was the Black Rabbit Edinburgh, a vegan cafe and deli. Unfortunately, they were out of the benedict I was hoping to order. So instead I ordered the Black Rabbit Bagel (essentially a BLAT on a bagel), and a lovely turmeric latte. Jojo ordered the Nae Egg and Cress Sandwich (and tofu egg sandwich). I also bought a couple of cheeses to try later on.







Jojo also got some strawberry cheesecake. I tried a bit, it was lovely!



A pretty Edinburgh park.



Our next stop was Lighthouse Bookshop, a radical bookshop in Edinburgh. I also wanted to visit here because a bookshop called Lighthouse is very Stede from OFMD coded, if you know, you know. Yes, I'm still on my gay pirate bullshit, I will never get off it. It was a very cool bookshop, of course soooo many books that I wanted to buy. But I contented myself with one.



Just down the road from the bookshop was Yi Fang Bubble Tea, where Jojo introduced me to the joys of matcha brown sugar bubble tea. This was SO GOOD!



More Edinburgh being pretty.



Our final stop was Considerit, a vegan bakery. It was almost the end of the day for them, which meant they were sold out of a lot of things, and the remaining things were all extremely icing heavy. But we did get a bag of cinnamon sugar doughnut holes, which were delightful.



After that, it was a drive back to Jojo's place! We stopped at a Tesco, to pick up some supplies on the way. Next time, hanging out with sheep in rural Scotland!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Another photo of the very handsome Kobi. Since I've returned home, Kobi has gotten a new kitty brother! So exciting.

UK/Spain 2024 Part 2: Edinburgh!

Once I was in Edinburgh, my wonderful incredible friend Jojo picked me up from the airport. Longtime bloggers/PPKers might remember Jojo from her original blog, Vegan In Brighton. Well, now Jojo lives in Scotland has has rescue sheep and we were going to spend a whole wonderful week together! Once I was collected, we went to our friend Emil's house. Emil is was also an old school blogger/PPKer, and now lives in Edinburgh, and it was their birthday on the day I arrived! So we were spending the night with Emil and their partner and their cat and our other friend Jenny who had come up from Manchester.

Right after we arrived, Emil had organised a delivery of the famous Gregg's Sausage Rolls and Steak Bakes. The sausage rolls were just OK (sorry UK, I am particular about my sausage rolls), but I loved the Steak Bake! Not pictured, there were also some Gregg's glazed doughnuts but I'm not a glazed doughnut fan. We aired out some hot food takes between us all, which was very funny.



After snacks, Jojo and I went for a very short walk to Easter Greens, a little vegan shop about 10 minutes walk from Emil's. Can I tell you how much I was loving Scotland? It was delightfully cool. Everything was so pretty. Take me back there! Anyway, Easter Greens was lovely! I bought some chocolate and some kombucha. Of the chocolate, I've had the Montezuma's 100% black before and know that is fantastic. But I haven't had the other ones yet! Obviously I drank the kombucha that night. The Strawberry and Rhubarb Kombucha was DELICIOUS! The ginger and yuzu, not so much.





On the way back, we walked passed a little vegan coffee shop called Little Fitzroy Cafe (which was amusing to me because Fitzroy in Melbourne has a ton of vegan options). The Hawaiian Pizza savoury roll in the window caught my eye. It was very good.



Once we were back, Jenny arrived and we had a lovely spread of snacks that I did not take a photo of. But it included dips, crackers, chips, and I'm just realising there was some vegan cheese that we never every got around to oh my god take me back there right now so I can eat it!

Emil made dinner, even though it was their birthday, and it was delicious! Lasagna, roasted potatoes, and green beans.



THEN, they had also made their own cake. Emil is a professional baker by trade, so this of course was going to be stunning. They made an alcohol-free Cranachan-inspired cake, which was an oat and raspberry sponge and then some sort of special Russian buttercream. It was GORGEOUS and it was delicious!





I had brought Emil some things requested from Australia (vegan Kewpie mayo, vegan Kraft mac and cheese, vegan Tim Tams), but Emil had also prepared a box of things for me! Including some biscuits, chocolates, a pancake mix, and some vegan malt powder! I haven't tried any of these yet, but will report when I do!





More Edinburgh eats in the next post!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Kobi! Emil's cat! I have been a fan of Kobi for a long time on the interwebs, and I finally got to meet him. He is SO cute and funny! I love him.

UK/Spain 2024 Part 1: Let's get to Scotland

HELLO FRIENDS!

I have been over the seas! And now I am back. I had three glorious weeks in Scotland, London, and Barcelona (including some Singapore stop overs both ways). And I know you want to know what I ate!

This first post is going to take us from Brisbane to almost Scotland. Three days worth of travel! Eight hours Brisbane to Singapore, a night in Singapore, then 14 hours Singapore to London, a night in London, and then a one hour and 20 minute flight from London to Edinburgh.

We had a morning flight out of Brisbane to go to Singpore, and we were flying Business Class! Fancy! Access to airport lounges! I had of course eaten something very early in the morning (before saying a tearful goodbye to the cat) before we went to the airport. But once we were in the Sinapore Airlines lounge, there were a few vegan options in their breakfast buffet. Hash browns! Roasted tomatoes! Fruit salad! There was also some beans and some chia pudding, that I didn't try.



I had requested a vegan meal on the flights, but I wasn't sure exactly what that would entail being in Business Class. I did pack many a snack for myself as well, of course. The main meal on the flight to Singapore was lunch. I was given a fancy little quinoa and tomato salad with a lovely avocado dressing to start with. Next up was some stir-fried noodles and, what I was afraid of, spicy! I could only request vegan, I couldn't not specify anything else. I did eat as much as I could, just because it was there. And it would have been very nice if it hadn't been spicy. Thankfully afterwards there was a fruit plate of cooling melons!







Not long before we landed in Singapore, we were given a snack. Mine were vegetable pasties, with a very capsicum heavy sauce that I left on the side.



Once we landed in Singapore, it was time for a rest as we were spending the night there to break up the very long trip. There was very little other than literal fruits and vegetables on the room service menu for vegans, so I headed out looking for dinner. I really dropped the ball here, and figured I could just walk around and find something easily. There was a huge shopping center called Jewel right next to the hotel that was full of food places. It also had a beautiful central waterfall and forest feature.



Anyway, I didn't have any wifi or data at Jewel, so I was going in blind. Happy Cow didn't show me any places nearby (more about that later on in the trip). I walked around for ages and I couldn't see anything obviously vegan until I found a Subway outlet but even though it was open, there was no one working behind the counter. So I ended up back at the airport, hungry, feeling like a vegan in 2002, until I finally found a place that did salads and bowls. I made a bowl of quinoa, teriyaki tempeh, charred broccoli, cucumber, lettuce, and lemon dressing. Also some inari, and a grapefruit pomelo bubble tea.(Don't worry, my return trip through Singapore was much more successful).



The next morning I had a Cliff Bar in my hotel room so that I could take my morning pain killers, then it was back to check in for our very long flight! This meant another visit to the Singapore Airlines lounge, this time in Changi airport. This was harder, as nothing had 'vegan' written on it, I had to go based off allergen and contains symbols. The hashbrowns had egg and dairy in them! Tragedy! But I did get some noodles, dumplings, and rice cakes.



This was the LONG flight. It left Singpore at 9am and got into London at 5pm with timezones, but that was 14 hours in the air. Oh, did I mention that Singapore Airlines Business Class has lie flat seats?? Fantastic! Revelation! Incredible! We got breakfast again on the flight. I had fruit, soy milk, and WAFFLES!





After a nap and a movie or two later, as well as talking to some friends (FREE WIFI!), it was time for the next meal. A felafel salad followed by Pad Thai (that was for some reason even spicier than the previous day's noodles) and a little fruit jelly for dessert.







I was travelling with my mum, but when we finally landed in Heathrow we went our separate ways for a while. She was off to do a family history tour through England for the week. I was staying in an airport hotel before flying off to Scotland the next day! The hotel did have some vegan options on the menu, but I instead elected to go to a Marks & Spencer at the airport to go look for fun vegan food! And oh did I find some! I had a bed picnic dinner of a Vegan Hoisin Duck Wrap, a New York Style Salt-Beef roll (with cheese and pickles) on a Pretzel Bun, a sweet potato and tenderstem broccoli salad, and some apple and peanut butter (that I saved for the next morning). The best part was the New York Style Roll! Highly recommend. I also got one of the best ginger kombuchas I've ever enjoyed, as well as some snack bars. So far I've only had the almond rasberry bar, which was nice! Unfortunately I couldn't find any of the nice M&S vegan desserts that they sometimes apparently have, but I had more than enough food.







In the morning it was off to Scotland! I was flying Business Class again, this time with British Airways, so that I had a consistent baggage allowance across the trip. But instead of going to the lounge, I went to Wagamama's in the airport and got a green juice and their Vegan Bacon and Mushroom Breakfast Bao (hold the sriracha mayo). I also realised I could have specified a vegan meal on the plane, but I forgot and I didn't really need to eat on such a short flight after breakfast, so that was fine.



Next stop, Edinburgh! I have so much to share with you all.

Let's address to COVID of it all. Travelling in a COVID world is a lot of risk analysis. I wore my N95 mask when I was on the plane or indoors, but I did have to take it off to eat. And I did eat at indoor places many times. I had my COVID booster a few weeks before I left, and I was constantly squirting my FLO Travel nasal spray when I took my mask off and before putting it back on, as well as in the mornings, when I got back to the hotel, and before I went to bed. It wasn't possible to be as vigilant as I normally am back home, but I did the very best that I could.

But now, cats!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Last photo I took of Eloise before I left, and it was her trying to eat my breakfast. Typical! I love her.